World History teaching resources for the high school classroom: lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes and simulation games for KS3, IGCSE, IB and A-Level teachers.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

The origins of the transatlantic slave trade is touched upon in the earlier study of the European Voyages of Discovery. However, it is important to cover this as a topic in its own right, and then to follow this up with a study of the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

Introductory Video

Can you Survive the Middle Passage? [interactive]

Based on the memoirs of Olaudah Equiano and the story of the Amistad rebellion, this simulation attempts, as far as is ever possible, to help students understand something about the harrowing "Middle Passage" across the Atlantic for black Africans captured into slavery. Complete with five different lesson plans, students then produce a memoir as did Equiano, which later becomes the centerpiece of their campaign to abolish slavery in our next unit of study - thereby putting the role of black people in the abolition movement center-stage.

Runaway Slave Advertisements: PowerPoint Starter

This PowerPoint displays a series of advertisements for runaway slaves. Students are encouraged to read through each to deduce the sorts of terrible conditions that slaves had to endure.

Life on the Slave Plantations [1] - Slave Narratives

Students read a series of first-person narratives from this sourcepack. Students use these to determine the sorts of punishments inflicted for different types of "crimes" on the slave plantations.

Life on the Slave Plantations [2] - Images and Explanations

Students are presented with a series of images and explanations and placed into teams for a competition over several rounds to test knowledge and understanding of life on the slave plantations. Instructions for the quiz can be found here.

End of Unit Test

Students are provided with a selection of possible questions in the GCSE Paper 1 format (a. Describe, b. Explain, c. Assess). They are told that one of these three-part questions will be set as the end of unit assessment - it is up to the teacher which to choose.

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